Founder Sues Over Firing Due to In-Office Policy

“It isn't just the rank-and-file facing return-to-office crackdowns. The co-founder of an $8 billion asset-management firm was ousted for not complying with his own in-office policy -- and now he is suing.

 

William Nieporte ran the firm Bramshill Investments with two high-school classmates for about a decade before they fired him in 2022. The reason: "You have willfully and deliberately failed to report to 'in-person' work," the other co-owners wrote in a termination letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

 

A few months before, the three men signed an email sent to staff ordering them back to one of the firm's three offices, five days a week. If they didn't abide, the firm offered severance, the email stated.

 

In a federal lawsuit filed in May against the human-resources company Bramshill teamed with, Nieporte alleges his fellow co-owners used the policy as an excuse to push him out and "usurp" his 12% stake in the firm. He argues the mandate didn't apply to him. (A provision in an operating agreement for Bramshill's parent, Ironmen, requires the shareholders to sell their interest if they are fired for cause.)

 

The saga is a twist on the return-to-office tensions that bubbled up at companies in recent years. Vanguard, Meta, Starbucks, and others told some workers that they risked termination if they didn't comply with calls to come back to the office after the pandemic. Rarely, has a member of the leadership team faced similar consequences.

 

Though one of Nieporte's legal filing says the owners all discussed the policy, he believed it wouldn't apply to the firm's owners. So he "appropriately ignored the email," according to the suit.

 

The suit is against ADP Totalsource, a division of payroll provider ADP that manages human-resources functions and shares employer responsibilities with Bramshill and other business clients. Because of that arrangement, and a termination notice it sent him, it shares responsibility for his unjust firing, his suit alleges. Nieporte claims in the suit that he is owed at least $30 million in lost earnings, profits and the value of his 12% stake.

 

He is in arbitration proceedings with Bramshill, its parent and his two former co-managers, Stephen Selver and Art DeGaetano.

 

Allyce Hackmann, a spokeswoman for ADP, said it would defend itself against Nieporte's allegations and that the company is in compliance with applicable laws. Once clients make separation decisions and enter them into ADP's platform, an automated letter is generated.

 

A Bramshill representative said Nieporte's claims were built on fabricated accusations and that it expects the legal process to affirm that neither it nor the co-owners engaged in wrongful conduct. Nieporte was terminated because of a dereliction of duty and isn't entitled to the money he is seeking, the Bramshill representative said.

 

Nieporte's attorney, Matthew J. Press of Press Koral LLP, said the only duty Bramshill claims he neglected was returning to the office. Such a policy doesn't amount to valid cause for termination under the company's operating agreement, his filings argue.

 

The return-to-office policy, Press added, was for employees and "did not validly apply to Mr. Nieporte, who was an owner and manager of the company." The closest office to Nieporte, then living in San Ramon, Calif., was hundreds of miles away, in Newport Beach.

 

Nieporte, Selver and DeGaetano go way back. They attended the same school, Don Bosco Prep in New Jersey. The 1986 Bosconian yearbook shows Selver and DeGaetano on the football team for the Don Bosco Ironmen -- the mascot that would later lend its name to Bramshill's parent.

 

Nieporte and DeGaetano started Bramshill in 2012. When Selver came on board two years later as chief executive, he took a 40% stake in the company, while DeGaetano, the chief investment officer, held 48%, according to legal filings. Nieporte, the chief operating officer and chief compliance officer, got 12%.

 

With the two others' approval, Nieporte moved to San Ramon in 2017, according to his filings. After that, Selver and DeGaetano tried to force him out a couple of times and offered to buy him out in 2021, according to an arbitration filing. Nieporte rejected the "lowball" offer.

 

The final blow, in 2022, came when the company ordered employees back to their desks, starting in April. The deadline to get to an office was July 5, though many employees had additional flexibility.

 

"You are all employees at will and can choose to abide by this mandate in the terms laid out above or not," read the note, signed by Nieporte, DeGaetano and Selver. "If you choose to not abide by the mandate, we will be offering severance packages."

 

Nieporte is a co-owner, not an at-will employee, his filings argue. After the July deadline, DeGaetano wrote to Nieporte: "We have both junior and senior employees commuting over one hour each way to work, and yet you feel this policy doesn't apply to you."

 

He said Nieporte had 30 days to avoid further action. (In a filing, Nieporte said such notice wasn't delivered via fax, hand delivery, courier or certified mail and so wasn't valid.)

 

Later that month, Nieporte approached DeGaetano to discuss a buyout, a court filing shows. DeGaetano agreed to meet, and said via email that "all pending actions on either side will be put on hold." Days after that meeting, Nieporte was fired -- before the 30 days was up, his filings say.

 

Selver and DeGaetano stopped paying Nieporte portions of the firm's profits and converted his interest in Bramshill, Nieporte alleges.

 

He now lives in Nevada and works for a startup -- remotely.” [1]

 

1. Founder Sues Over Firing Due to In-Office Policy. Ellis, Lindsay.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 06 July 2026: B1.